The film tells the story of Alexander Nevsky, a historical figure who in 1242 led the Russian forces against the Teutonic Knights, a religious order founded during the Third Crusade. The longest and most dramatic movement of Prokofiev’s score, “The Battle on the Ice,” accompanies the film’s pivotal scene in which the mounted forces of both armies meet on a frozen lake. The movement opens with quiet tension, then bursts into frenetic action when the battle begins. Harsh tones and clashing rhythmic patterns evoke contending armies. Unexpectedly, the movement ends quietly, as if even Nevsky’s victorious forces are overcome with weariness.

Sergey Prokofiev.

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Other notable sections include patriotic choruses, prayerful scenes, and a triumphant finale in which Nevsky and his forces retake the captured city of Pskov.

January 23, 1898 Riga, Latvia, Russian Empire February 11, 1948 Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R. Russian film director and theorist whose work includes the three film classics Potemkin (1925), Alexander Nevsky (1938), and Ivan the Terrible (released in two parts, 1944 and 1958). In his concept of film...

(from Italian cantare, “to sing”), originally, a musical composition intended to be sung, as opposed to a sonata, a composition played instrumentally; now, loosely, any work for voices and instruments.